Old-school coder living in a 2.0 development world.

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Monthly Archives: July 2005

It looks like Doom (the movie) teaser is out. So far, the only thing I can say is: this doesn’t look like those crappy game-to-movie movies. It looks more like those crappy adventure-with-special-effects movies.

I finally made available my VIM plugin to access CVS. You can download it here. A list of available commands/shortcuts can be seen on my homepage.

I have another one, to access Sql*Plus, but it really needs some clean up (I did some tricks calling a Python script and want to remove it before doing a release. Also, the three commands behave differently and that sucks). As soon as the clean up is done, it will be also be available on my homepage.

On our work, we have to use a crappy Delphi program called “TimeKeeper”, to point out what we were doing, how much time we spent on a project and so on. As it is a Windows application, I can’t use it on Linux (and it sucks as a Windows application — well, any Windows application suck, anyway).

So I decided to write my own time keeper, using Python. The result is TimeTracker and it just suck a little less. There still some very rough edges and the code deserves a good clean up before a formal release (read “freshmeat announcement”) but I’m doing an informal release of a very alpha code. You are free to use it, modify it, break it and call it names.

Missing parts: put a GPL notice in the tarball, nicer output on screen, reports and fix the thousands bugs it still has (I did a try on a Windows box and they cropped like crazy).

As soon as I get sure that it isn’t losing any data, a formal release will appear. Also, I’ll move my Bazaar repository to CScience.org, it will made available to everyone.

Edit 1: I moved the repositories to CScience.org. If you want to access them, there are instructions on my homepage.

I was planning doing a Marvinistic post about how I fell there is a big hole in my chest, that my attempt to forgot my problems when downhill when Arthur Dent, the hero of “Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” scored (it seemed pretty sucky when a comic character from a comic book had more action than you), that “Peter Gabriel – Mercy Street” made me cry (twice) and how God probably hated me for not hitting me with a lightning bolt and finishing with my misery when I decided to step back and look the whole situation from a different, more broader, point of view.

First thing that came to me was post with a poem by Chico Buarque. Not that Chico Buarque is some kind of sentimental guru, but I’m sure he has much more experience in this field than I. And I must admit it: I’m devoid (even if that’s not the right word). I miss someone in my life and I want someone in my life. That’s something I can’t hide, that’s something I can’t deny.

The second thing was the color quiz I took a few days. Even if internet quizzes aren’t the solution to every problem you have, they can make you think. I recall my mother saying that in one of her therapy sessions, the psychologist said something that made her completely angry and later she had to agree with him. The thing I hated the most was being called “egocentric”. If that made me so angry, would it be true? So I took the “egocentric” stamp and checked things I thought were altruistic and, to my surprise, a lot of them could be seen as egocentric.

Now put the two things together: what would someone feeling needy and being egocentric do? Probably… drop himself under depression just to get attention. Yeah, I’m hitting myself in the face here. I’m actually putting myself down just to get attention. Even worst: this post is probably also an attempt to get attention (well, maybe not: maybe I just want to hit myself in the face to learn something). Even this looking pretty pathetic, it is also something good: now I know where the source of some of my problems are.

This would be great, except that, as far as I can see, feeling alone is actually pushing my other feelings to some other direction. So, what if I really try to solve my solitude by, you know, finding someone in my life. What if she “fixes” me, and I just find out that she is not someone that completes me, and that I just used her? That would be selfish and egocentic (and you can add that to my dilemma list). I surely couldn’t look my own face after doing something like that. There is another solution: as Babaum always say, I could act like a real man and call my mom. The problem here is that she is miles and miles away and that wouldn’t be so easy. And now we got to another point: I changed my trip plans to be with my parents, remember? Could that be another attempt to get some attention? Would I be fair with my own parents getting with them just to feel better about myself? That’s egocentric.

If all this is pushing me to something that isn’t true, what about everything else? What if the thing I really love to do is not something I really love? What if what I take for granted about myself I put in front of me just to make me feel safe? They could all be some truth I put in front of myself just to hide the real truth from me.

And all I can say for sure, right now, is that I don’t like the way things look now. I can’t go on feeling this way, I can’t even trust myself right now. I need to change something and I don’t know what to change.

Punch me hard in the face, ’cause I’m fucked up in the head.

Edit 1: something horrible just crossed my mind: what everything I did with my friends were, actually, attempts to make me feel good? Jesus, if I find this is true, I deserve to be burned in public…

After reading the last quiz over three times, something hit me: After doing it, I’m still the guy who did it? I mean, I realize there is some truth in there, but know someone (well, something) pointed that out, and I know the bad points should be corrected, so I’m still the guy who did it? If I took the quiz again, would I get the same answers? (Probably yes, I would choose the same colors, after all) But the point is: reading that made me realize some things and, even if they don’t change me in one hour, I’ll probably be different from now on (even if it is just a little be different).

This reminded me of an old movie, where a girl says that “we never know people how they really are. When we meet someone, we make an impression on them, and they do some impression on us. So we are not the same as we were before meeting them, and they are not the same as they were before meeting us”. Or anything along these lines.

Defensive. Feels his position is threatened or inadequately established. Determined to pursue his objectives despite the anxiety induced by opposition.

Your Stress Sources

Suppresses his innate enthusiasm and imaginative nature, for fear that he might be carried away by it only to find himself pursuing some will-o’-the-wisp. Feels he has been misled and abused and has withdrawn to hold himself cautiously aloof from others. Keeps a careful and critical watch to see whether motives towards him are sincere–a watchfulness which easily develops into suspicion and distrust.

Your Restrained Characteristics

Feels cut off and unhappy because of the difficulty in achieving the essential degree of cooperation and harmony which he desires.

Egocentric and therefore quick to take offense. Able to obtain physical satisfaction from sexual activity but tends to hold aloof emotionally.

Your Desired Objective

Considers the existing circumstances disagreeable and over-demanding. Refuses to allow anything to influence his point of view.

Your Actual Problem

Disappointment and the fear that there is no point in formulating fresh goals have led to anxiety, emptiness, and an unadmitted self-contempt. His refusal to admit this leads to his adopting a headstrong and defiant attitude.

Your Actual Problem #2

His natural ability to examine everything with critical discrimination has been distorted into an attitude of harsh disapproval, which opposes and denigrates without regard to the real facts.